My parents in Oz said there was publicity on tv for some revolutionary new fin system, available at surf shops.
Anyone over there got any details?
Is it something new, or just a lot of existing fin company pr?
The fin shape, not system, won the Australian Design Award. It was designed by Surf Hardware International’s Anthony Rodier who teamed up with naval architect Andy Dovell to find a ‘better design’. Aided by a $1million Australian Gov. grant and a $1 million in private money, hundreds of prototypes were tested at the Australian Maritime College in Launceston. The judges declared that “the designers had achieved the impossible… this product has been designed to perfection”.
$2 million spent on a better foil…??? ( …at least if ever I want to go surfing at the tank in Launceston I’ll know what fin to use 
So whats so special about the $2million fin?, any pics or news of production? Australian Maritime College, that sounds like a fun school
Tip-drag photo from FCS’s own ad! Amazing!!!
So who were the judges?
Where were Rabbit, Mark Richards, Occy, or Cheyne?
Have a look at the foil and tell me what you think.
The language singing their praises be might slightly trumpted up, but one must sell one’s product, right?
Perfection?
Hmmmm…?
What does the tip drag picture really represent?
Review references:
http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/101/101.htm
http://www.tomahawk-customs.de/surfshop/fins/FCS-H-2_253.html
A million dollar grant… hmmm…I wonder how much of it goes into hype?
IMHO, Blurbs are too fishy and the fins aren’t fishy enough. Changing the cant and toe-in will make any fin act differently.
Had a look at them a couple of months ago at the Freeline shop. Haven’t surfed them but wondered about flex characteristics? I’m betting their rigid.
Whatdayathink Blakestah – T. O. – K. P. – Lokbox? ? ?
not amazed, Rich
Shifting of chord lengths to shorter chords at the tip and longer chords in the middle…I like this.
Raked ellipse…obviously I like this, this is how I design my own fins. This sorta relates to the reduced chord lengths at tip. It should be pretty easy to show this relates to increased lift and decreased drag at any positive AOA.
Can’t tell the thickness or foil from here, probably rail fins are flat on the high pressure side and the front edge radiused at 25% max thickness…looks like they might be thicker also.
Increased toe-in - loosen up the tail.
Increased cant…this I don’t like. It is a trade-off. More vertical lift in turns, compared to more hold. In a sense the slip plane is parallel to the bottom of the board, and the fin will create hold best if it is perpendicular to the slip plane (to imagine the slip plane, visualize the movement of water across the bottom of the board if it were finless). If the fin is angled from the slip plane, it will transfer force to the riders, at a tradeoff of decreased hold. If it is angled in toe-in, the rider will get hold and thrust. If it is angled in cant, the rider will get lift and hold. FCS seemed to use more cant and more toe-in.
The trade-offs are reduced “high end” turning. They trade some hold for some thrust and some lift. The best riders already use and prefer less toe-in (and more rocker), to minimize the turning radius. Of course that is not relevant to people who will at best use double the turning radius of a Kelly Slater, so it’s probably a good thing for the masses.
It looks like they studied at least toe-in, planshape, foil, and cant, and probably their interaction, so I think they’re a fair leg up on the competition…but none of it is IP protected.
Spending a million bucks on it - easy as pie. Design and operate a high volume controlled flow tank. Add cameras. Design a new finbox instrumented to measure force in six directions, at the top and bottom of the fin tabs. Then run a bunch of tests, make some fins, do more test, etc. The guys running the tests are contract mechanical engineers…it will add up VERY fast. You make the limiting factor in research the intelligence of the guys designing the test.
The tip picture shows the induced drag at the tip vortice. They oughta show a pic of a G5 fin tip vortice also, I bet the comparison would be interesting. Of course that is all data they know, we don’t, but they get to tout in their marketing.
im with Halcyon…
that ‘amazing’ pic is just a tip vortex…how interesting…a negative thing is being sold to the masses as a good thing!?
http://142.26.194.131/aerodynamics1/Drag/Vortex.html
The up wash has the net effect of reducing the angle of attack on the wing, near the wing tip. The overall result is a decrease in lift and an increase in drag (induced drag.)
as Rich said, that fin template is very upright and will significantly change the feel of the board…more pivoty, more sensitive to foot placement…less drivey
booooooring…
wow blakestah…so much detailed feedback from a set of pics…
so they’ve changed the template and rake and perhaps foil…
toein and cant couldnt be part of the design award, right?
was that an industrial design award or an engineering design award? makes a ton of difference…
Whats the market price for these? I bet its 3 figures…good god!
Maybe Rich is on to something…
The fin leading edge is pretty much dead center of the distribution of rakes among thruster templates. If you overlay a G5 template and the new template you can see more clearly how the template was changed. Slightly less base width, large reduction in tip size, slightly less progressive rake (with the average rake angle reasonably preserved). The chord lengths near the tip are reduced enormously - and this is compensated for by increasing the chords about 2-3 inches up from the base, a good idea I took from Halcyon’s mental template. They probably didn’t think of making the base width chords shorter than those 2-3 inches up, but I’m sure they’ll come around if they keep testing. But flow tanks cost $$$$ for testing. BTW, the second template - my Orca thruster template - works real well in the bottom turn on a thruster (it is not scaled the same as the FCS fins, but you can see their template looks a lot like the one I designed last summer for the thruster - actually, except for a scaling of chord lengths and a mild cutaway at the base, they are nearly identical).
was that an industrial design award or an engineering design award? makes a ton of difference…
predominant industrial designers on that panel
http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/INFO/JUDGES/JUDGES.HTM
http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/SPORT%20AND%20LEISURE/…
let the judging begin…
<a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/003/003.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/003/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/003/003.htm" class="bb-url">003-04-05 : Mustang 3500 Sports Cruiser</a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/019/019.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/019/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/019/019.htm" class="bb-url">019-04-05 : OZTENT</a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/038/038.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/038/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/038/038.htm" class="bb-url">038-04-05 : HYDRO TECH 2 SWIM FINS</a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/039/039.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/039/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/039/039.htm" class="bb-url">039-04-05 : SAS – Spinal Articulated Back System (including School Pack Harness)</a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/092/092.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/092/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/092/092.htm" class="bb-url">092-04-05 : Smash - Player Shade System</a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/101/101.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/101/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/101/101.htm" class="bb-url">101-04-05 : FCS H-2</a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/195/195.htm" class="bb-url"><img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/195/thumb-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /></a> <a href="http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/195/195.htm" class="bb-url">195-04-05 : Bello Backpack</a>
HEY!!! WHERE’S THE HEAD TO HEAD FIN COMPETITION!?
Oh well, my money is on the shade system…
a good idea I took from Halcyon’s mental template.
HEY RICH!!! You better hurry and get your entry in…I think you can take’m…
i will give them some credit…they know how to market their products…throw enough money at it and they will come…
Quote:
So who were the judges?
Where were Rabbit, Mark Richards, Occy, or Cheyne?
Have a look at the foil and tell me what you think.
The language singing their praises be might slightly trumpted up, but one must sell one’s product, right?
Perfection?
Hmmmm…?
What does the tip drag picture really represent?
Review references:
http://www.designawards.com.au/ADA/04-05/Sport%20and%20Leisure/101/101.htm
http://www.tomahawk-customs.de/surfshop/fins/FCS-H-2_253.html
A million dollar grant… hmmm…I wonder how much of it goes into hype?
IMHO, Blurbs are too fishy and the fins aren’t fishy enough. Changing the cant and toe-in will make any fin act differently.
Had a look at them a couple of months ago at the Freeline shop. Haven’t surfed them but wondered about flex characteristics? I’m betting their rigid.
Whatdayathink Blakestah – T. O. – K. P. – Lokbox? ? ?
Well, since you asked what I think Rich, I think the fin works insane! However, when I first saw it I thought it beared an uncanny resemblance to Rich Pavels canard quad front fin that he developed around 15 years ago. <img src="http://www.designawards.com.au/images/submit-images/04-05/101/large-1.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /> <img src="http://forum.surfermag.com/photopost/data/505/37672_Rich_pavel_speedialer_fish.jpg" alt="" class="bb-image" /> Of course I've only ridden it as quad with the double foiled rear fins in the back, so I couldn't give an opinion as to how it works as a thruster set-up. The added angle will loosen the board up for sure, but with an extra rigid flex, my concern would be at what speed will it spin-out. My guess would be that it might work best with a rear fin that was more raked. </blockquote></div>
I WANT SILICONE SWIM FINS!!! ahhh finally sooo comfy. Can you buy those yet? anyone try them out. I swim and bodysurf a lot and my feet get destroyed.
That tent is pretty cool too for baja excursions, too bad can’t drive there from oahu
Howzit cb, to quote George Greenough,he says that fin design is so important that every pro surfer should be spending about $20,000. a year on fin desgn. That works out to about $880,000.00 a year for the tour surfers as a whole. Aloha,Kokua
Hello Blakestah, i just enjoyed the very readable analysis of the outline shape of the new fins you gave.
We don’t seem to know enough about the other parameters. of differences between FCS new fins and traditional ones the design award website published(pasted at the bottom of this msg) only pts 1 and 2 are unambiguous. So I think you might have pt 3 the wrong way round. ie less toe in, not more. I just put the numbers into my calculator and on my board with its 13 1/2 tail, 6’ 9" in length 1 degree of toe in would pt the fins approx 22 feet in front of the nose, have I got it wrong? been some time since i tried simple geometry equations. Normally my fins pt 2" and 10" in front of nose (asym).
regarding p2 or the foil section they really don’t say anything at all other than the implication it isn’t the usual flat on one side. Anyone seen them - curved both sides perhaps?
from http://www.tomahawk-customs.de/surfshop/fins/FCS-H-2_253.html
"The H-2 side fins have been toed in slightly to enhance manoeuvrability and rail-to-rail transitions. "
and
SIDE
Base: 4 1/4" ~ 107.5mm
Depth: 4 11/16" ~ 118.5mm
CENTER
Base: 3 7/8" ~ 98mm
Depth: 4 1/4" ~ 108mm
Cant: 10º
Toe Angle: 0.5º
The resulting design is significantly different in four important parameters.
-
the profile of the fin. Where traditional fins are based around a ‘dolphin’ type profile, the H-2’s geometry is an evolution of a tempered elliptical profile, significantly increasing the fins efficiency in the water.
-
the section of the fin. Traditional fins have a curved surface on the outside (facing the board’s rail or edge) and a flat surface on the inside of the fin (facing the centre of the board). This section evolved from a number of tests on specific geometric parameters and was found to be the most efficient in the tank, and in the field.
-
the tow angle (orientation toward the nose of the board) of the fin. To accommodate the improved efficiency of the geometry of the fin, the fin was angled a half a degree toward the nose to improve the performance of the fin in surfing manoeuvres, as evidenced in field testing.
-
the cant of the fin (angle of orientation from perpendicular to the surface of the board). The most favourable cant angle of the fin was found in field testing to be 14 degrees to the surface of the board, 10 degrees more than traditional fins.
I’d be willing to bet that one of the most important design aspects is that it look different than other fins. Nicely done with the profile and more importantly the texalium. Gotta try them before I knock it any more than that though.
I think the toe and cant listed there are relative to the plugs, not the board. That meshes with the text.
14 degrees is a LOT of cant.
It comes down, once again, to feel. To my way of feeling, they work fine, better on some boards, and better at some breaks. Small waves, small boards, speedy flick turns and lip launches, they are fun. Feel a little looser, as expected. Even surprisingly good on long lined up overhead bowly waves. React quickly, adjust well to getting in the tube and don’t seem to lose much speed in turns. But nothing earthshattering. Haven’t noticed any extra blazing speed yet. And in my boards for bigger hollow powerful barrels, I switched 'em back to the standard old favorites. Just have a better smoother more dependable feel esp when hitting hard gauges at full umph. I will soon be taking 'em to some South Pacific racetracks to compare vs the usual…